


The Safety Of Your Arms

by anxiousgoat



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Christmas, He Still Takes Advantage Of Harry's Vulnerability Though, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mistletoe, Podcast: Fanatical Fics and Where to Find Them, Romance, Room of Requirement, Time Travel, Tom Is A Cold Hearted Murderer But Dammit He Respects Consent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:00:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28270536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anxiousgoat/pseuds/anxiousgoat
Summary: Harry travels in time and meets the teenaged Tom Riddle. While he thinks this could be a chance to change the future, Tom thinks it could be a chance to change Harry. Also, there's mistletoe and Tom is hot.
Relationships: Harry Potter/Tom Riddle
Comments: 11
Kudos: 202
Collections: Fanatical Fam's: Holiday Fic Exchange





	The Safety Of Your Arms

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Treirina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Treirina/gifts).



> Treirina, I hope you enjoy this fic, because you deserve the best of fics! A very happy Christmas to you!
> 
> Also, thank you to [A_Door](https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Door/profile) for beta reading this for me!

Harry is sprinting through strange rooms filled with strange things in pursuit of Bellatrix Lestrange. Sirius is dead. Bellatrix killed him, and now Harry is going to kill her. He screams a spell as she whisks around a corner, but she’s gone before it even leaves his wand. He runs faster. He’s lost all sense of direction, is runing through rooms he doesn’t remember seeing before, and Bellatrix is always round the next corner, her laughter taunting him, her voice calling him on.

Another door bangs open. Harry plunges through it. Finally, he’s catching her up.

“ _Avada Kedavra_!” he screams, but although she has to dodge the spell, it doesn’t hit her. She cackles at him again and yanks the door she landed against open, diving through. Harry is after her again, but then he skids to a halt, his wand raised, his eyes darting around the room.

Where is she? He steps further in, realising in some backwater of his brain that this is the time room with its smashed time turners; only the immense one that hangs high up on the wall is still intact. As he peers around the room, pushing his glasses up his nose, still shaking with fury and distress, Bellatrix’s voice comes again.

“ _Crucio!_ ”

The spell is so strong that Harry is lifted from his feet, flying through the air, slamming, hard, against the wall, screaming his throat raw. As it ends, he slides down the wall and lands at the bottom in a painful shower of shattered glass, wood splinters, and sand. His hand is still clutched around his wand; he can feel it there, fragile but undamaged, but he can’t move to use it.

Bellatrix appears above him. She’s smiling. She bends down, her long, bedraggled hair brushing his face, and sets the tip of her wand against his chest where his heart is.

“ _Avada Kedavra,_ ” she whispers, gazing into his eyes.

And the world goes white.

***

Harry opens his eyes. He’s lying on a hard floor and the world is a blur of brown and grey. He lifts a hand to his eyes, but his glasses are gone. He feels around on the floor for them. Shit. Then there’s a flash of movement in the corner of his eye and he tries to focus, but without his glasses all he can see is a black-robed blotch with a pale face and blurred dark hair.

“Sirius?” His voice comes out as a croak. Bellatrix has killed him, just as she killed Sirius, and now he’s… wherever people go when they die. He must be. And Sirius is here too, and this isn’t the outcome he was going for but he’ll take it. He’ll take anything that gives him Sirius back.

The blurred figure comes closer and places his glasses gently onto his face. Harry blinks and a boy comes into focus, leaning over him just as Bellatrix did before she killed him.

“You’re not Sirius,” Harry observes, his voice a little less croaky now. He stares at the handsome face, with its dark hair, high cheekbones, and slender mouth, for a moment longer. “You’re Tom.”

One of the neat, straight, eyebrows rises.

“You know me?”

“Er… no,” Harry says quickly.

Tom crouches down beside him so that their faces are close together, and looks into Harry’s eyes. He has an oddly intense stare. Harry isn’t sure he could look away even if he wanted to. Not that he does want to.

“I think we both know that isn’t true,” says Tom, very quietly. “Why don’t we try again?”

Harry gulps. Tom is as intimidating as he is… well, nobody could deny that he’s _very_ attractive, could they?

“I do know who you are,” he admits.

“And?” Tom’s wand is held casually in his hand, tapping against his chin.

“And… er…” Harry swallows again. “You… I don’t think I should say.”

“Fascinating,” says Tom. Tap, tap, tap. “Well, why don’t we come back to that? Who are you?”

“I’m Harry Potter,” says Harry, and then wonders if he ought to have told Tom that. And why is Tom here, anyway? Wherever “here” is. For the first time he looks around at the room he’s in, and realises that it’s the toilets at Hogwarts. The ones on the second floor that Myrtle’s always breaking and crying in, so nobody uses them. The room where she died… is about to die? Harry sits up and adjusts his glasses, then looks warily at Tom.

“This is going to sound a bit weird,” he says. “But when are we? I mean, when is this?”

“I beg your pardon?” Both of Tom’s eyebrows go up this time, and his eyes narrow.

“When… is this?” Harry repeats.

“It’s 1942,” says Tom slowly. His eyes are fixed on Harry, still narrowed, dark and intense. “The Christmas holidays.”

Harry does hurried calculations. 1942. No wonder Tom is here, in this bathroom. This is the year he opens the Chamber of Secrets and kills a girl… but not yet, because it’s only Christmas. Myrtle is still alive. Was Tom about to get the basilisk out of the Chamber when Harry arrived? Has he just left the Chamber? Has he been wandering the halls, petrifying people? A cold shiver runs down Harry’s spine.

And yet, he can’t help thinking, if Tom hasn’t killed anyone yet… if Harry were, somehow, to stop him… Sirius is still in the front of his mind, his laughing face visible every time Harry blinks. Could Harry save him? He hardly dares to think so, but he has to try, doesn’t he? He wonders how long he’ll be here. For that matter, how the hell did he _get_ here? He remembers it all. Sirius’s death, the chase through the Ministry, Bellatrix ambushing him in the time room, sending an _Avada Kedavra_ straight into his heart as he lay in the ruins of a gigantic time turner, covered in the sand it held.

Well, that’s how he got here, he supposes. Somehow. If there’s one thing he’s learned during his time at Hogwarts it’s that magic is really fucking strange. Anyway, if time and magic do wrench him back to where he came from, he vows, he _will_ have made a difference. Even if he’s only here for another five minutes, he will make some difference. Surely a Tom who hasn’t yet killed can be turned onto a different path. He realises that Tom is watching him intently and that he’s been silent for far too long.

“Christmas?” he says. “I guess there aren’t many people around, then.”

“There aren’t. I tend to prefer it that way, though.”

“I do sometimes, too,” says Harry, and adds clumsily, “But… maybe we can spend some time together.”

Tom puts his wand away and gets to his feet in one smooth movement, then reaches down to help Harry up. Harry is significantly less graceful about it. He goes to brush his robes off, but there’s no sand there. Weird.

“I think,” says Tom. “I would like to know significantly more about you, Harry Potter, before I agree to that. Are you a student here? You look about the same age as me and you’re wearing Hogwarts robes, yet I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you before. You ask me _when_ we are, and the answer silences you for over a minute. And you know me, but you don’t want to tell me how. Time for some explanations, don’t you think?”

“Honestly, I don’t think I should,” says Harry.

Tom leans against a sink… no, _the_ sink… his arms folded across his chest.

“You are from the future, yes?”

Harry blinks, startled. Tom raises his eyes briefly to the ceiling.

“Oh, come on. It was obvious. What I would very much like to know is _when_ in the future?”

“1996,” says Harry, giving in. “You just… well, one of your followers just killed my godfather.”

“My followers?” says Tom, his eyes gleaming. “ _Fascinating._ ”

“You’re evil,” says Harry flatly. “You kill hundreds of people. By 1996 you’re barely even human. You look like a snake, and you act like a monster.”

“Hmm. I admit I’m disappointed that I lose my looks, but sacrifices must be made for power, Harry. Surely you know that?”

Harry snorts bitterly.

“Oh, yeah, I know all about your sacrifices. You sacrificed my parents and half their friends. All those Muggles, Professor Quirrell… and now Sirius, too. You’ll sacrifice anything apart from your own precious life.”

“Well, really, Harry, you can’t expect me to just allow myself to die. Only the weak die.” Tom looks amused, as though Harry is unutterably childish not to have considered this point of view. “However, to more important business. I suspect, from everything you’ve said, that you have come back in time all these years, to this place, in order to try to reform me?”

“It was an accident, actually,” Harry says.

“Oh? How intriguing. Would you care to tell me about it? Perhaps we can work out how you got here. The power of time travel would be _extremely_ useful, as I’m sure you can imagine.”

And suddenly, the whole situation is so ludicrous that Harry starts to laugh.

“I’m not going to give you any more dangerous powers than you already…”

Tom smiles and walks towards Harry, placing a finger under his chin and tilting his face up so that Harry is, once more, gazing up into Tom’s eyes.

“I have a little proposition for you,” he whispers, and Harry feels his cheeks heat up.

“I’m not just going to let you get away with all your… evil shit,” he says in a would-be defiant voice, hoping that Tom doesn’t notice the tiny wobble in it. But Tom’s mouth curls at the corner, making Harry’s stomach lurch in… dread. Yes, dread. Obviously. “I may have come here by accident, but that doesn’t mean I can’t try to change things.”

“Such a brave boy,” Tom murmurs. “It really is commendable. But Harry, do you think me a fool? My proposition was not for you to allow me to continue with my, ah, _evil shit._ ”

Harry blushes again.

“What, then?”

“I propose,” says Tom, his breath ghosting over Harry’s face. “A little game. Today is the afternoon of Christmas Eve. From now until midnight tomorrow, you are welcome to use any method you like to persuade me to change my ways and come over to your side. I, however, will also be able to use any method at my disposal to persuade you of the benefits of friendship with me and my side. What do you say?”

His finger is still under Harry’s chin, forcing his eyes to look into Tom’s, and it makes it hard for Harry to think. Tom’s eyes are deep brown with a slender black line around the irises, fringed by long, dark, lashes. One of the lashes has fallen out and is resting on his pale cheek.

Harry pulls his mind back to Tom’s “proposition”. A small voice inside him tells him that it’s foolish, dangerous, ridiculous, to engage in a battle of wills with Tom Riddle, the boy who will become Lord Voldemort. But also… Tom’s giving him a chance, isn’t he? An honest chance to make a difference. If Harry rejects it, he might be rejecting any possibility that Tom can change. And that, therefore, Sirius can live. Doesn’t that almost oblige Harry to accept? He swallows.

“All right,” he says.

The finger is whisked away. Tom steps back. Harry’s chin drops, and his body seems to relax. He hadn’t realised how tense he was.

“Wonderful.” Tom smiles at Harry. “Now, I’m afraid I must go to dinner, and I really don’t see how we can fool Dumbledore into thinking that you’re a student here, so I’ll take you down to the Slytherin common room first. There are a few of us staying over the holidays, but I’m the only one from my dormitory, so you’ll be safe down there.”

Harry is already wondering whether he’s made a bad choice, and being made to stay hidden in the Slytherin dormitories is rather an unnerving prospect. Still, he reminds himself, it’s not as though Snape is there now, or even Malfoy. Then he shakes himself. Is he honestly thinking of Tom Riddle as safer to be around than Snape or Draco Malfoy? He really needs to sort his mind out, but that’s rather hard to do when Tom has taken hold of his hand (Tom’s is cool, larger than Harry’s, and very smooth) and is towing him swiftly through festively decorated corridors and down stairs until he reaches the wall where the Slytherin common room lies.

Tom murmurs the password, _Viscum album_ , and they enter. Still clasping his hand lightly, he leads Harry across the wide common room, now empty, and through a door at the opposite side. Unlike in Gryffindor Tower, a spiral staircase leads downward to a corridor with several doors leading off it. Tom walks to the furthest one on the left and pushes it open.

“I’ll bring you something to eat, of course,” he promises, and his hand slides out of Harry’s.

The door closes behind him, and Harry stands there, absent-mindedly opening and closing the hand that Tom held and looking around him. In some ways, the Slytherin dormitory is quite similar to the Gryffindor ones. There are four-poster beds lined up along the wall, some with their curtains closed, others open, some tidy, some chaotic. The big difference is that, like the Slytherin common room, the Slytherin dormitory has a huge window covering the entirety of the far wall, looking out into the lake. Harry walks towards it to gaze into the dark, greenish water. A little shoal of silvery fish flickers by, making him smile.

Perhaps Slytherin wouldn’t be so bad after all.

He shakes his head and wonders when Tom will be back. He wishes he knew more about the teenage Voldemort, something that could help him persuade the boy to change his mind and reform himself. Dumbledore must, surely, know more than he’s told Harry. He was Tom’s teacher for seven years, after all, and must have some insight into his character. But that’s Dumbledore all over, isn’t it? Harry slumps against the huge window. Dumbledore hasn’t talked to Harry this entire year, and now he’s got Sirius killed.

Turning away from the window abruptly, he inspects the beds. It’s easy to see which one is Tom’s. Not only are the curtains neatly closed, every gap sealed off, and books, parchment, and quills stacked tidily on top of the trunk that stands at its foot, but sitting there innocently on his bedside table is a small, black-bound, Muggle diary. Harry can’t help it. He picks it up and opens it. It’s almost disappointing to discover that the pages are as blank as they will be in 1993. Did Tom buy it with the specific purpose of putting his memories into it? Has he done that yet? Harry has always vaguely assumed that he did it after killing Myrtle, since that’s when he had to stop opening the Chamber, but Dumbledore never actually said.

Of course he didn’t.

Then he wonders if Tom is already planning to kill someone, or if he’s been trying to all along and people have just got lucky, the way they did – will – in fifty years’ time. Well, whatever Tom is planning, Harry’s sure he can stop it. He’s got to.

He sits down on Tom’s trunk to await his return, gazing out at the waving fronds of some water-dwelling plant. Neville would probably know what it was. Is Neville dead now? Or rather, now in fifty-three years? The Order turning up doesn’t mean that nobody else died… he wonders how Ron and Hermione, and Ginny, and Luna, are faring. Perhaps they’re all dead, or perhaps the Death Eaters have been caught and are on their way to Azkaban. It’s so strange to think that half an hour ago he was there, and now…

All that has to happen is for Tom to change his mind. It sounds so easy and so utterly impossible.

It’s over an hour before he returns, and Harry has completely failed to come up with a plan that could actually work. When he sees that Tom is carrying a tray stacked with a covered plate and, on top of that, a covered bowl, he stops even trying. He can think again after he’s eaten.

“I had to go down to the kitchens to get you a proper meal,” Tom explains, balancing the tray with one hand and pulling back his curtains with the other. “But they were very generous. Here, come and sit on my bed.”

Harry hadn’t dared pull back the curtains on Tom’s bed. He doesn’t know, of course, how concerned Tom is about the privacy of his belongings, but he can’t help but suppose _very_. Still, now that he’s been invited he doesn’t hesitate. While he scrambles up onto the bed, Tom puts the crockery down carefully and extracts silver cutlery and a fastened bottle of pumpkin juice from his pocket. Soon, Harry is sitting cross-legged with a tray balanced across his knee, eating and drinking eagerly. He hadn’t quite realised before this just how hungry and thirsty he was, though what with the battle and then the time travel it’s hardly surprising.

Tom waits until he’s finished his toad in the hole and the chocolate sponge and custard that follow, then hands him a second bottle of pumpkin juice to wash it all down with, and bestows a warm smile upon him.

“Now,” he says, flicking his wand to send the dirty crockery over to sit on top of a large chest of drawers, then shifting to sit next to Harry. “Where shall we begin?”

“Begin?” says Harry. The dormitory is much warmer than he somehow expected the Slytherin dormitories to be, and he’s pleasantly full, and leaning back against Tom’s soft pillows he’s _not_ thinking about Sirius, he really isn’t, especially not with Tom right next to him, his arm and thigh brushing against Harry’s when one of them moves.

“Our game,” says Tom, amused. “Unless you’ve decided already, of course. If I’d realised that all it would take to persuade you was a hot meal…”

“I’m not persuaded!” says Harry, poking Tom with his elbow. “Just tired.”

“What a shame.” Tom gives him a sidelong smile. Is he flirting? No, of course not. Anyway, he’s Voldemort, or he’s going to be. What kind of person wants Lord Voldemort flirting with them? Except, of course, he’s _not_ Voldemort. Not yet. Maybe a bit of flirting would even do him good. Harry’s never been good at that, but he could give it a go.

“Why don’t you go first?” he says. “I’d… er… like to hear more about you.” He gives Tom his best attempt at an alluring smile, but it makes his glasses slide down his nose and he has to push them back up.

“Are you all right?” says Tom.

“Fine,” mutters Harry, blushing. Okay, flirting probably isn’t the way to go. “Go on, you say something. Tell me something. Try and persuade me.”

“We’ll take turns,” says Tom. He shifts slightly and their thighs bump together again. “You ask me a question, then I’ll ask you one.”

“All right.” Harry tries to think of a question, but he can’t think of anything good and ends up blurting out, “Why do you hate Muggleborns?”

Tom’s dark eyebrows rise slightly.

“I don’t, of course. It’s Muggleborns who hate purebloods. Who _has_ been telling you these things? That’s my question.”

“Dumbledore,” says Harry.

Tom’s face falls.

“Oh,” he says softly, and looks down, pain in his face. Without thinking, Harry takes his hand. Tom squeezes, but doesn’t look back at him.

“What is it?” says Harry. Tom shakes his head.

“I don’t really… I shouldn’t… I know we’re supposed to be trying to persuade each other, but I don’t want to be unfair. It isn’t really relevant.”

“If it’s true, then it’s fair,” says Harry. “Isn’t it? I mean, the truth’s important, and you never know what’s going to end up being relevant.”

He thinks again of Dumbledore, of the way he’s avoided Harry this year, of the way he keeps on not telling him things. He promised Harry that he’d never lie to him, but he’s concealed so much that it feels like practically the same thing. Tom looks up and gives Harry a ragged, reluctant smile.

“I suppose you’re right,” he says, and sighs. “It’s nothing really. Only Dumbledore… he never really liked me. He was the one who came to the orphanage to tell me about magic, but he… I mean, the other teachers were all so kind to me, it never really mattered.”

Harry had almost forgotten that Tom Riddle grew up in an orphanage, and he feels a twinge of sympathy. Sympathy, and surprise that Tom mentioned it. Harry himself hardly ever talks about his life with the Dursleys. It makes you vulnerable, telling people that sort of thing. He moves to touch shoulders with Tom in what he hopes is a reassuring manner.

“It sucks that you had to grow up like that,” he says quietly. Tom bites his lip and looks away. Perhaps the bit about the orphanage came out by accident.

“It doesn’t matter,” says Tom with a small, sad laugh. “Hogwarts is my home now, and the magical world. Dumbledore didn’t come to Diagon Alley with me, you know. I discovered it all for myself. I think it made it feel more like it was _mine_.”

“That was really unfair of him!” says Harry angrily. He lifts Tom’s hand and hugs it against his chest, Tom’s fingers curling warmly around his. He leans against Harry, just a little bit.

“No,” he says. “He was a busy man, even back then, and I did tell him I could go by myself. I… I don’t blame him for it.”

But Harry can read between the lines. A little orphan boy trying not to put Dumbledore to any trouble, and Dumbledore not even bothering to question his word. He must have known, surely, that it was cruel to expect a young child to navigate the wixen world all by himself. Harry can’t imagine how he would have coped with Diagon Alley without Hagrid.

After that, the question game is forgotten. They stay there, talking, laughing, commiserating, for hours. Tom explains his feelings about Muggles and Muggleborns to Harry, and somehow it makes a lot more sense than Harry every imagined it could. He doesn’t agree, of course, but he’s beginning to feel that Tom is more misguided than evil and that it really might be possible to change him. He tells Tom all about Sirius, both of them becoming more and more sleepy as the hours pass, but Harry doesn’t stop and Tom doesn’t try to make him. By one in the morning, they’re lying face to face on Tom’s bed, hands clasped together on the blankets between them. When Harry explains, tearfully, about Sirius hating being shut up in Grimmauld Place all those months, Tom raises Harry’s hands to his mouth and kisses his knuckles gently. And when Harry finally finishes, he shuffles closer to put his arm around Harry.

“I’m so sorry,” he says, his breath warm on Harry’s face. Harry isn’t even trying to brush the tears away.

“I just want him back,” he whispers.

“I know,” says Tom. His arm tightens around Harry. “If it helps at all, I regret… I _truly_ regret his death. I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again. I’ll do a lot of things differently this time.”

And he raises himself up on one elbow for a moment so that he can plant a soft, lingering kiss on Harry’s cheek. Harry lies there, his eyes closed as tears leak from them, and Tom doesn’t say any more. He just holds him close, their chests and arms and knees pressed together, until Harry falls asleep.

***

When Harry wakes up, he’s alone. Disappointment stirs in his gut. He’s rarely felt so safe or so cared about before. It’s an odd thing to think about falling asleep in the arms of the youthful Lord Voldemort, but he finds that he no longer cares very much about the strangeness of it all. And when he sits up and sees the note, written in small, neat handwriting, that Tom has left for him on the pillow, he doesn’t even try to to quash his smile or the small ribbon of happiness that twirls up through his body.

Following the suggestion in Tom’s note, he showers, taking his time over it. He slept in till almost lunchtime, which is not a great surprise. After all, he fought a battle, lost his godfather, travelled in time, and fell asleep in the arms of his greatest enemy yesterday. It’s the sort of thing that would tire anyone out.

He finally emerges from the shower, very pink and warm and dressed in clean clothes Tom laid out for him (the thought of Tom choosing underthings to lend him made Harry more than blush, but he’s over it now. Mostly). He wanders back over to the window onto the lake. There really is something very serene about looking straight out into the dark green depths, even when there aren’t any creatures in sight, just fronds of aquatic plants drifting gently in the water.

Harry is still standing there, leaning against the cool glass, when the door opens behind him and Tom enters, carrying a tray filled with a gigantic Christmas dinner, as well as pudding for after. There are even four of the enormous wixen crackers stacked on one side of the tray for them to pull. Harry smiles at him tentatively, feeling a little shy after last night, but Tom smiles back warmly. He puts the food down on the bed and waves Harry over. For some reason the fact that the bed is still messy from where they slept makes Harry hesitate to sit on it again, but Tom gives him a quizzical look and pats the rumpled sheets again.

“Aren’t you hungry?”

“Oh, er, yes,” says Harry, nearly falling flat on his face as he climbs up, but recovering just in time.

“I was thinking, do you want to go for a walk when you’ve finished?” Tom suggests, and Harry brightens. Beautiful as the deep lake is, he’d quite like to see sunshine and sky again. It’s only been a day, but somehow it feels much longer than that.

“Definitely,” he says, beaming, and lifts the cover off the hot plate Tom has brought him.

The Christmas dinner is just as luxuriously delicious as it will be in his day, and there’s so much of it that Harry shares with Tom and they both eat their fill. Harry likes eating together much better than eating while Tom watches him, like last night. When some gravy escapes and runs down his chin, Tom reaches out and wipes it away with his thumb. It makes Harry’s stomach flutter. They pull the crackers afterwards, laughing over the terrible jokes and strange gifts that explode out of them, and then choose their favourite hats from the crackers to wear for their walk. Tom puts on a top hat that looks like real silk, and Harry dons a woolly green hat with the most enormous red bobble he’s ever seen. Looking at each other, they start to laugh again and, just like the talking and crying last night, this laugh feels like healing.

They leave hand in hand. Tom’s is as cool as it was last night, and Harry is relieved that his is much cleaner today. Tom is a good few inches taller than he is, and it feels nice to walk slowly along the empty corridors with their fingers intertwined. The fact that the corridors are festooned with brightly coloured ribbons, baubles and tinsel, that the statues are all wearing elaborate festive hats, that Peeves is singing the same Christmas songs he’ll still be singing in Harry’s time, all makes the moment feel warmly perfect. Even the Great Hall is decorated with the usual twelve enormous Christmas trees.

“Did Hag–?” Harry starts, before he remembers that Hagrid is still a Hogwarts student. He hasn’t even been expelled yet. Another thing that Harry might be able to prevent. Another life not ruined by this strange boy whom everybody fears but Harry feels peculiarly safe with. Happy, even, if it weren’t for the weight of grief for Sirius that still sits heavily inside him. He leans against the doorframe that leads into the Great Hall and smiles again at Tom, whose face softens.

“You look like you’re thinking too hard,” he says, and brushes a lock of Harry’s hair back under his hat with his fingertips, his touch a warm tingle on Harry’s skin.

“Some people would say I don’t think enough,” says Harry, feeling his smile become a grin. Tom scoffs.

“They’re fools,” he says. “I can see you thinking and it’s beautiful.”

He comes towards Harry, taking his hands and pulling him into an upright position right in the middle of the doorway, then raises his eyes towards the ceiling. Harry, gripping Tom’s hands tightly and feeling warm inside, follows his gaze. There’s a large bunch of white-berried mistletoe above them, tied with red ribbon. As Harry lowers his eyes again, his heart suddenly thumping in his chest, Tom’s fingers come up and catch his chin, tilting it just as he did yesterday, except that it feels so different this time. And so… similar.

“May I kiss you, Harry?” Tom asks softly.

It takes a moment for Harry to remember how to speak.

“Yeah,” he croaks. “Please.”And then Tom’s lips, warm and firm and much more competent than Harry had expected, except that of course Tom is competent at everything, are on his, and Tom’s hands are on Harry’s back, drawing him closer until their bodies are pressed together, and one of Tom’s hands comes up to cradle the back of Harry’s head, kissing him more firmly, and he’s just as competent with his tongue, more so perhaps, and a little noise escapes the back of Harry’s throat. His arms are around Tom, his hands fisted in Tom’s robes, and he’s standing up on the balls of his feet and it’s hot and wet and warm and a thousand sensations are flooding through his body.

“Ahem.”

Harry jumps backwards. Tom gives him a fleeting wink before turning around, stepping in front of Harry so smoothly and casually that Harry is overcome with admiration at his subtlety. Harry keeps his head slightly bent, letting the huge red pompom from his hat dangle over his face, but he knew from the moment the man cleared his throat who it was.

Dumbledore.

“Mr. Riddle,” he says, and although his voice is cheerful on the surface, there’s an underlying coldness to it that Harry has rarely heard. A small, anxious knot forms in his stomach.

“Oh, I am sorry, Professor Dumbledore,” says Tom, his voice polite and humble. “I suppose we got a little carried away.”

“So I see.” This time, Dumbledore’s voice is a shade warmer, though Harry isn’t sure why. “I quite understand. However, perhaps it would be wiser to keep the more, er, _passionate_ display of affection private.”

“Of course, Professor,” says Tom. “Thank you.”

He reaches for Harry’s hand and whisks him past Dumbledore before he can get a good look at Harry’s face. Even so, Harry catches a glimpse of a curious, even calculating look on Dumbledore’s face, and he wonders what it means.

“That was close,” he says, as they start up the marble staircase that leads to the upper floors. “Do you think Dumbledore realised I’m not a student?”

“I don’t think so,” says Tom. “He’d have said something if he had.”

They start laughing and don’t stop until they’ve climbed up another two floors.

“Weren’t we going to go for a walk?” asks Harry, suddenly remembering how much he’d been looking forward to feeling the fresh air on his face again. Not that he minds, really, when his hand is in Tom’s and they’re laughing together at Dumbledore’s expense, but also just because they enjoy one another.

“We were,” says Tom. “But after Dumbledore… well, I thought of something else, and I think you might enjoy it.”

“What is it?”

Tom doesn’t answer, but takes them up another flight of stairs, and another, until they’re up on the seventh floor and… oh, of _course_. Tom comes to a halt beside an extremely familiar tapestry and swings Harry round to face him. His face is alight, his eyes gleaming with excitement.

“I’m going to show you a secret, Harry, perhaps one of Hogwarts’ greatest secrets. Nobody knows about it except me, and now you.”

“Yeah?” says Harry. “Wow.”

He can’t help smiling at Tom’s assumption that he’s the only one who knows about the Room of Requirement, but he doesn’t disillusion him. He knows how precious a secret can be, especially when your life has always lacked privacy, and anyway, he wants to see the pride and joy in Tom’s face when he displays his treasure to Harry.

When Tom pushes the door open, they find themselves in a small, cosy room, the sort of thing Harry doesn’t think it ever would have occurred to him to ask the Room for. But Tom is so creative and clever, of course _he_ would. The walls are oak-panelled and the carpet is so thick that Harry’s feet sink into it when he enters the room. There’s a big fireplace with a roaring fire on one wall, a large, plump sofa, a beautiful glittering Christmas tree, and, on the opposite side of the room to the fire, a big, welcoming four-poster bed. The room is decorated abundantly with holly, ivy, mistletoe and pine sprigs. It’s the warmest, most comfortable thing Harry has ever seen. Even the sight of the bed, there at Tom’s request, makes him feel excited rather than nervous.

Tom closes the door behind them and it vanishes in the blink of an eye. It’s just the two of them now. Harry turns to him, their hands still clasped together.

“This is amazing,” he says.

“You like it?” says Tom eagerly.

“I love it.” This time it’s Harry who initiates the kiss, and for several long moments there’s near silence. Tom is so _good_ at this. Even the way his fingertips dig into Harry’s back makes Harry’s knees tremble and his heart thump. But he pulls back at last. There’s something he needs to say to Tom before this goes any further.

“You all right?” says Tom. He pulls Harry to the sofa, which is even softer and comfier than it looks.

“Very all right,” says Harry, grinning at him happily. “I just wanted to tell you thanks. For taking care of me.”

Tom shrugs.

“I was hardly going to starve you, Harry.”

“No, I don’t mean that. At least, I do. The food was great. But I mean all of it, and especially last night. You were… I was… you were just what I needed. Nobody’s ever looked after me like that and it was… nice.” He looks down, embarassed. “I really appreciate it.”

Tom cups Harry’s face in his hands and makes him look up again. He looks very serious and deeply touched.

“I’m so glad I was able to help you,” he says sincerely. He kisses Harry, lightly this time, and studies his face for a moment. “I’ll always take care of you,” he says at last. “If you’ll let me. Will you?”

“Yeah,” says Harry, for the third time that afternoon. It’s been a very strange twenty-four hours, but here in this room with Tom, he feels warm and comforted and, more than anything else, safe. He hasn’t felt safe in such a long time. Not ever, really, not even with Sirius, and he finds that he doesn’t care about anything else now that he finally does. “I want you to.”

And as they begin to kiss again, Tom pressing Harry into the soft cushions of the sofa, his glasses slightly askew and his body responding eagerly to Tom’s touch, more mistletoe begins to grow and sprout above their heads.


End file.
